The Poetry of Dress
Robert Herrick · 1648
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. Robert Herrick. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:--
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distractión,--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher,--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly,--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat,--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;--
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.